James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Recording of Daphnis and Chloé Nominated for Three Grammy® Awards

Including Best Album

Chris Botti's In Boston, recorded at Symphony Hall with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops also nominated in Three Categories

"the musicians of the Boston Symphony Orchestra breathe life into the characters as the music dances from the recording" - Interchanging Idioms

James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Ravel’s complete Daphnis and Chloé, featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor, has been nominated for Grammy Awards in the categories of Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Engineered Album, classical, for the 52nd annual Grammy Awards, scheduled to take place on January 31, 2010. These are the first nominations for the orchestra on its label BSO Classics.

Also nominated in three categories is Chris Botti’s CD/DVD, In Boston, recorded with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall on September 18 and 19, 2008. Chris Botti’s In Boston has been nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Album, Best Instrumental Arrangement, and Best Long Form Music Video.

In addition, the BSO is highlighted in another nomination this year. Yehudi Wyner’s Piano Concerto “Chiavi In Mano” has been nominated in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by Robert Spano, performs the work with pianist Robert Levin on the Bridge Records recording.

DAPHNIS AND CHLOÉ
On February 19, 2009, the Boston Symphony Orchestra released Ravel’s complete Daphnis and Chloé, along with Brahms’s A German Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, William Bolcom’s Eighth Symphony, and Bolcom’s Lyric Concerto for flute and orchestra—its first major recordings with Music Director James Levine, available on the orchestra’s own BSO Classics label through its website at bso.org. The releases featuring James Levine and the BSO were drawn from recordings made during live performances at Symphony Hall, part of an ongoing project to record all of Mr. Levine’s BSO concerts for archival purposes and possible recording consideration. Ravel’s complete Daphnis and Chloé, recorded on October 5 and 6, 2007, was chosen to reflect the orchestra’s long history as an ardent advocate of the French symphonic repertoire, particularly that of Ravel. This luminous score, one of the composer’s most important works, was commissioned in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes and contains some of Ravel’s most stunning, atmospheric, and exciting orchestral writing. The recording features the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor.

CHRIS BOTTI: IN BOSTON
Chris Botti’s CD and DVD In Boston were recorded with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall on September 18 and 19, 2008. The special collaboration was broadcast nationally during PBS’s pledge drive in March 2009. A CD, CD/DVD, and Blu-ray edition of the performance were released on March 31, 2009.

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